I like to look for things no one else catches. I hate the way drivers never look at the road in old movies. -Amelie (2001)

There are two kinds of trivia questions- those I know the answer to and those I don't. Questions in the first group seem obvious, questions in the second group-interesting and tricky. That said, I'm trying to avoid the questions that only require basic plot knowledge to answer (e.g. What Hitchcock film featured Jimmy Stewart as a new photographer with a broken leg?) and stick with the latter-you had to be paying attention, or be a good guesser type. Here's this weeks movie trivia:

Settings:
Q: What film featured an aerial attack at Prairie Stop, a deserted bus stop on Highway 41? (A trickier question for this film would be: When Eve Kendall says "I never discuss love on an empty stomach," what do her lips actually say that had to be overdubbed to meet decency standards?)

Titles:
Q: What film had Delta 9 nerve gas not sprayed over Fort Knox?

On Screen:
Q: How many characters took part in the final airport scene in Casablanca?

Production:
Q: What U.S. First Lady did John Huston tell Katharine Hepburn to play Rosie like for The African Queen?

Q: What was the first scene filmed in the making of Gone With The Wind?

Answers in a day or so.

Baby, did you forget to take your meds?

I listen to music on my iPod on the Metro to work, at work, and on the Metro home again. Usually this amounts to 125 songs a day. Here are the top ten song lyrics that arrested my attention from whatever I happened to being doing at that moment today (in the order I heard them) with artist, song title, and lyric sample:
-Placebo, Meds, 'Baby, did you forget to take you meds?'
-Doors, Break On Through, 'You know the day destroys the night; Night divides the day; Tried to run; Tried to hide; Break on through to the other side'
-Simon And Garfunkel, Baby Driver, 'My daddy was the family bassman; My mamma was an engineer'
-The Shins, Turn On Me, 'So affections fade away, and do adults just learn to play, the most ridiculous, repulsive games? On the faith of ruddy sons, and the double-barreled guns,you better hurry, rabbit, run, run, run.'
-Moondance, Michael Buble, 'And all the nights magic seems to whisper and hush; And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush'
-Brandi Carlile, Closer To You, 'Someday we might learn to tell the truth; We might even find the fountains of our youth'
-They Might Be Giants, Whistling In The Dark, 'Theres only one thing that I know how to do well; And Ive often been told that you only can do; What you know how to do well; And thats be you, Be what youre like, Be like yourself'
-Snow Patrol, Open Your Eyes, 'Get up, get out, get away from these liars; Cause they don't get your soul or your fire'
-Foreigner, Blue Morning Blue Day, 'Blue morning, blue day, won't you see things my way?'
-Bare Naked Ladies, If I Had $1,000,000, 'If I had $1000000 we wouldnt have to eat kraft dinner, but we would!'

Exposing redundant exposition

I'm a big fan of the forensic procedural drama- I watch CSI (original recipe), Without A Trace, Numb3rs, and Bones. Normally the writers on these shows have enough technical jargon added to make the characters seem knowledgable to the home audience and normally-since I'm not trained in forensic science-I don't realize to what degree the filler jargon is just that-filler. However, the episode before last on Bones one of the characters was examining a body using UV light and a camera with a UV filter. The expositionary line went something like this: 'I'm looking at the body with a camera filtered to see only UV light below 400 nm.' But since I know that all UV light is below 400 nm, this just made me laugh and say to the TV- "that's dumb all UV is below 400 nm" Sometimes a little education is a curse. Note to forensic show writers: Dialogue where one character says 'the victims hyoid bone has been broken' followed by the other saying 'they were strangled?' is also getting old...

We all know most marriages depend on a firm grasp of football trivia. -Diner (1982)

I mentioned previously that my 1001 Movie watching project was partly motivated by my desire to win Trivial Pursuit: Silver Screen Edition; I was only partly joking. The categories and corresponding colors for the wedges in this edition are as follows: Blue=Settings, Yellow=Off Screen, Green=Production, Pink=Titles, Brown=Off Screen, and Orange=Portrayals. Instead of just listing the movies that I've seen from the list, I think it will be more fun to post some of the trivia questions relating to the movies. I'll probably do five movies at a time until I catch up with myself. Here are the first five:

Settings:
Q: Where was Sonny Corleone ambushed in 1972's The Godfather?

Titles:
Q: What film offered the gruesome line: "The torso has been severed in mid thorax. There are no major organs remaining."?

On Screen:
Q: What was Popeye Doyle disguised as in the opening scene of The French Connection?

Production:
Q: Who produced All The President's Men?

Portrayals:
Q: Who played Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H?

I read that this is considered the most difficult edition of Trivial Pursuit ever made. Anyhow, I'll post answers in a day or so.


ETA: Answers now posted in the comments

Would you believe in a love at first sight?

Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time.
For Christmas this year I received Rolling Stone: The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. As Steven Van Zandt says in the introduction, "[lists] are absolutely subjective, utterly frustrating, always incomplete - and they cause more arguments than religion and politics." I won't argue with number one though, which is Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I love the Beatles, always have, always will. I've never been able to decide whether I like Sgt. Pepper's or Revolver better though, but since Revolver is number 3, I'll get to that later. And since the list is greatest albums, Sgt. Pepper's should beat Revolver in my mind. The songs on Sgt. Pepper's are all great stand alone songs (you know, except for those first two tracks that run together), but as an album the individual songs become better. Anyhow, so much has been said and written about the Beatles and this album that I can't possibly hope to add anything new to the discourse, except maybe this: If the album cover were being made today it probably would have been photoshopped together, instead of setting up a 3-D collage with The Beatles standing in the middle and then photographing it. It would have been less interesting as a result.

One Thousand And One Nights

Life, every now and then, behaves as though it had seen too many bad movies, when everything fits too well - the beginning, the middle, the end - from fade-in to fade-out. In a quest to be able to hustle a game of Trivial Pursuit, Silver Screen Edition, I am trying to watch all of the movies in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Before I took stock of the number I had already seen on the list, I figured- hey I like movies, I've seen alot, so I've probably already seen a fair number of these. Not so. I'd seen just over a hundred. To be fair, I couldn't have seen most of these in the theater since 658 were released before I was born. But with the help of a DVR and cable television I've now seen 167. To some this may seem like an exercise in pro forma movie watching. So far though I've enjoyed watching these, including the excellent jazz soundtrack to Anatomy Of A Murder, the completely sung dialogue (in french) of The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, and the unexpected ending of Network. I created a spreadsheet to track my progress, it's posted here if you feel inclined to see how many you've seen:1001 Movies Spreadsheet.

What's your google number?

Every once in a while I google search my name to see what's out there about me or other people with the same name. If I put my first and last name in quotes I get 824 hits. A link about the me that is me doesn't appear until the third page. Some of the other Anne's, of which two appear most frequently, are a physician, a canadian author, a writer for a parenting magazine, a reverend, and a spiritual weight-loss coach. I've never met anyone with the same name as me, and very infrequently have met people named Anne, so it is somewhat startling to see all the information out there about people with what feels like my name attached. Especially since I don't appear until the third page (One might call this a google-plex). However, if I add my middle initial to the search my google number drops to 54, and I'm the very first link--hey I can use the 'I'm feeling lucky' button. Google-plex solved.

So what's your google number?

See You Later Alligator

I recently went to Everglades National Park with friends of mine while visiting them in Florida. (Trivia: The Everglades is the only place in the world where both alligators and crocodiles live.) The US National Parks I've been too have all been really great, so I might become one of those people that tries to go to all of them- although so far I've only been to 4 of the 58. Here's an alligator at the Everglades. See more pictures here

This is a work in progress

I don't have a defining concept for what I will post about here, suffice to say that it will cover things that I like and enjoy. These generally include food and the preparation thereof, photography, music, movies, and travel. I won't be talking about my job or where I work since it is of a somewhat proprietary nature and also boring and difficult to explain unless you do it too (in case you thought proprietary implied exciting). Anyhow, that's it for now.